Very good montage of the Lightening, The RAF's fastest single seater, you can see the hot runway runs at Bruntingthorpe. The sheer noise and magic of this aircraft, used up until recently at Sun City in South Africa. The laconic and monosyllabic RT exchanges, brought back memories of listening to the aircraft as they entered and left the circuits, whilst sitting in Crash 1 at the thresholds.

The pilot who ejected was iirc Dick Coleman an RAAF exchange officer. 'Blackie' will be Flt Lt Ian Black who published several excellent books of the photography he conducted during tours as an F-4 nav and later as a Lightning pilot. 'Porky' will be Flt Lt Porky Page who was something of a legend in the Lightning community!

Both of the latter 2 had also qualified for Martin-Baker ties whilst on the jet! (nb no persec issues as all were named in various books).

I have found another recording of the telegraph reporter going up in the twin, he throws up in his glove, I will get it recorded and uploaded. Also some video when I went to the official scrap auction as a kid, 2 took off and landed, did a bit of showboating etc. I need to find a way of converting from video 8.

Paid a visit to Binbrook today, cant believe what a mess it is. Runway has been dug up, control tower demolished, the place is a state, all the buildings have been pretty much destroyed by vandals. A sad sad sight.

With speed brakes out, is this a shot of a pass or a wheels-up landing for this Lightning?

Click to expand...

Low pass, Topstop. By retracting the airbrake and piling on the power you're able to get a more impressive spot of excess power before sticking it on its tail and heading for the stars, as the Lightnings were wont to do. When they used to haul back on the stick to get the machine vertical the tailplane would get blanked by the wings and stall, so when the Crabs did their trick it was a three step process: pull back to get it going up, push forward to unstall the tailplane and then pull back again to get it into the vertical, while simultaneously chucking in the the burner. Always used to love watching them do that and absolutely gutted that I never got to ride in one :sad2:

Had the pleasure to start one up for take off, from station flight at Lossiemouth, gave him the thumbs up. Sir just put his hand up to the side of his head and gave a sooty type wave . Went down the runway burners on an stood her on tail, went straight up and I lost him out of sight, at the rate of his climb

Slight thread drift... but did anyone watch the recent two-part BBC documentary "Jet! When Britain Rules the Skies"? Part One was how WWII military aircraft technology developed into the production of record-breaking aircraft in the '50s and '60s, including the Lightning; Part Two concentrated on the civil aviation industry, in which Britain excelled at producing wonderful craft for a global market. Sadly both industries were consequently eroded by successive Governments.

The programmes are not currently available on iPlayer but I imagine they will be repeated some time in the future.

Low pass, Topstop. By retracting the airbrake and piling on the power you're able to get a more impressive spot of excess power before sticking it on its tail and heading for the stars, as the Lightnings were wont to do. When they used to haul back on the stick to get the machine vertical the tailplane would get blanked by the wings and stall, so when the Crabs did their trick it was a three step process: pull back to get it going up, push forward to unstall the tailplane and then pull back again to get it into the vertical, while simultaneously chucking in the the burner. Always used to love watching them do that and absolutely gutted that I never got to ride in one :sad2:

Pontius may be able to correct me. I'm sure I read some time ago that the actual angle of climb from the runway was a mere!!!! 60 degrees! It looked vertical to an observer but was in fact less than what it appeared. Sure I read it from a set of FRC's. Was a while ago so am not overly sure!